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Overview

Welcome to Financial Institutions: The changing perspective, the seventh in our series of surveys tracking market sentiment in relation to the global financial crisis.

The world has changed and it will continue to change. Three years on from Lehman Brothers’ collapse, this survey reveals the extent to which the financial institutions sector has already undergone a significant transformation and gives some clues as to how the landscape may evolve in the future.

Our research has been conducted worldwide reflecting the views of those within the financial institutions industry; we received over 245 responses through our survey and telephone interviews. The mood of respondents is noticeably more uncertain by comparison to our previous survey results from October 2010 which emphasised the increasing polarisation between mature economies, which are largely dealing with the aftermath of the global financial crisis and an ever tightening regulatory environment, and growth economies that are powering ahead free from these impediments.

This latest research perpetuates that theme, showing a distinct North-South divide, with Northern developed economies still inhibited by worsening confidence and increasing red tape, while growth markets in the South are now driving trade and economic activity. The market volatility and sovereign debt fears of July, August and September have only reinforced this polarisation. The survey solidifies the proposition that financial institutions are now reliant on growth in developing economies.

Even with these obstacles and the troubling fiscal environment in the West, a large proportion of our survey participants are optimistic about the future. Indeed, it is not a universal truth that the global financial crisis is entirely negative.